Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos | Poetry
What leads you to practice?
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- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
What Do You See?
What do you see when you walk down the street or into a room? Do you see more or less depending on whether the surroundings are new to you or familiar? John Friend has said that when leading a class teachers need to be able simultaneously to see the whole room (and how everything and the students are in relationship to each other in the room), each student as a part of the whole and as a whole person, and the individual alignment of each student.
What it takes to do this is the ability to be completely soft, spacious, and open in our seeing (“open to grace”) and also well enough educated and experienced to appreciate and understand the details. I think that when we can see both the big picture and the details simultaneously, we have the greatest opportunity to experience the most of life, are more likely to be able to look for the good, and to make the most positive changes.
- Art and Culture | Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Airport Delay (and “Unreasonable Happiness”)
I am sitting in Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International airport waiting for the plane that should already be carrying me home to finish being repaired. After having done a full hour of practice this morning in my room, having a last delicious breakfast at the retreat center, and enjoyed the two-hour ride with friends to the airport, I find myself perfectly happy to sit in the airport. I am warm and well-fed. I have bought a novel to read on the plane — Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” — and put aside a philosophy handout to write. The handout, a translation of the beginning of Abhinavagupta’s “Tantrasara” that was given to us by Paul Muller-Ortega to support our meditation practices, teaches us to seek the power of bliss through the practices, this bliss being true knowledge and true freedom. The more we practice, the more we can draw on this power and abide in a state of true happiness. Paul Muller-Ortega sometimes says that we want to be “unreasonably happy.” As I sit here feeling perfectly content after my weekend of practice and community and watching others in the airport get progressively grumpier with the delay, I feel unreasonably happy. I also feel fully motivated to practice and study ever more deeply so that I can abide ever more steadily and this glorious unreason.
Found Objects Around Town
Paper, tape, scissors?
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
And Yet Again Beauty (DWTD)
Even though we stayed up well past midnight last night for mahashivaratri, I would not have missed waking up in time to see the sunrise before I head to the airport any more than I would miss my daily practice. Each day it is different, but the same. Always, it reveals something of the heart.
Being Careful
Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine from yoga and mentioned that I was almost embarrassed that I found myself being extra careful on the stairs of the house because I so much want to avoid any need to go to the doctor.
The next day a neighbor posted a picture of her bandaged ankle; she sprained it falling down the stairs.
I felt a little better about my feeling a need for my minor care-taking.
